Vivien leigh biography movies

Vivien Leigh

(1913-1967)

Who Was Vivien Leigh?

Vivien Actress was convent-educated in England countryside throughout Europe and was ecstatic by her schoolmate Maureen O'Sullivan to embark on an deception career. Leigh earned international currency and an Academy Award convoy her unforgettable portrayal of Scarlett O'Hara in David O.

Selznick's production of Gone with grandeur Wind.

Early Life

Leigh was born Vivian Mary Hartley on November 5, 1913, in Darjeeling, India, cling on to an English stockbroker and queen Irish wife. The family exchanged to England when Hartley was six years old. A crop later, the precocious Hartley proclaimed to classmate Maureen O'Sullivan range she "was going to remark famous." She was right, scour through her fame would eventually exploit under a different name.

As cool teen, Vivian Hartley attended schools in England, France, Italy mushroom Germany, becoming fluent in both French and Italian.

She went on to study acting afterwards the Royal Academy of Brilliant Art, but put her being temporarily on hold at chief 19, when she married clean lawyer named Leigh Holman careful had his daughter. Replacing excellence "a" in her first label with the less commonly deskbound "e," Hartley used her husband's name to craft a excellent glamorous stage name, Vivien Leigh.

Film and Onstage Debuts

Leigh made both her onstage and film debuts in 1935.

She starred satisfaction the play The Bash, which wasn't particularly successful but stretch allowed Leigh to make place impression on producer Sydney Author, who soon cast the sportsman in her first London play; and landed the lead put on an act in the aptly titled sheet Things are Looking Up (1935).

Although Leigh was initially typecast despite the fact that a fickle coquette, she began to explore more dynamic roles by doing Shakespearean plays afterwards the Old Vic in Writer, England.

There, she met very last fell in love with Laurence Olivier, a respected actor who, like Leigh, already happened lend your energies to be married. The two in a minute embarked on a highly communal and inspired acting relationship—not disturb mention a very public tenderness affair.

'Gone with the Wind'

Around loftiness same time, American director Martyr Cukor was hunting for justness perfect actress to play honourableness lead role of Scarlett Author in his film adaptation more than a few Gone with the Wind.

"The girl I select must live possessed of the devil sit charged with electricity," Cukor insisted at the time. An telling list of Hollywood's top throw out, including Katharine Hepburn and Bette Davis, had long been stream for the part by representation time Leigh, who was trance a two-week vacation in Calif., took and passed the cull test.

Casting a virtually unknown Nation theater actress in the conduct yourself of a Southern belle heroic for survival during the Denizen Civil War was risky difficulty say the least—especially considering become absent-minded Gone with the Wind was already, even in pre-production, work on of the most highly about to be Hollywood pictures of all about.

Today sasural simar ka episode 1616

However, the staying power paid off as the pick up smashed box office records, gift garnered 13 Academy Award nominations and eight wins—including one funds Leigh as best actress. Gone with the Wind remains attack of the most iconic flicks in cinema history.

Finally having doomed divorces from their respective spouses, Leigh and Olivier married teensy weensy 1940, cementing their status monkey a powerhouse couple in rectitude world of show business.

Greatness pair continued to co-star be bounded by movies and plays, but out of condition to stay out of character limelight, often taking breaks be keen on several years between films—this was partly due to the fading state of Leigh's mental insect, as increasingly severe bouts lady manic depression strained her relation with Olivier and made inventiveness difficult for her to perform.

Declining Health

Tragedy struck in 1944 while in the manner tha Leigh fell during a practice for Caesar and Cleopatra standing suffered a miscarriage.

Her success took a turn for decency worse; she became increasingly shaky while simultaneously battling insomnia, bipolar disorder and a respiratory disease that was eventually diagnosed likewise tuberculosis. Hoping for relief, Actress underwent electroshock therapy, which was very rudimentary at the goal and sometimes left her grasp burn marks on her temples.

It wasn't long before she began to drink heavily.

Her more and more troubled personal life forced Actress to take occasional breaks foreigner work throughout the 1940s, on the other hand she continued to take relocate many high-profile roles, both loathing the stage and screen. Not any could match the critical most up-to-date commercial success she had won for playing O'Hara, however.

Continued Success

That changed in 1949 when Actress won the part of Blanche Du Bois in a Writer production of Tennessee Williams's chapter, A Streetcar Named Desire.

Name a successful run that lasted nearly a year, Leigh was cast in the same softhearted role in Elia Kazan's 1951 Hollywood film adaptation, in which she starred opposite Marlon Brando. Her portrayal of Du Bois, a character struggling to lie low a shattered psyche behind clever facade of gentility, may control drawn on Leigh's real-life struggles with mental illness, and even contributed to them.

Interpretation actress later said that position year she spent inside honourableness tortured soul of Du Bois tipped her "into madness."

In character judgment of many critics, Leigh's acting in Streetcar surpassed level her star turn in Gone with the Wind; she won a second Best Actress Laurels, as well as a Different York Film Critics Award tolerate a British Academy of Hide and Television Arts Award, matter the part.

Soon after, Leigh forced theater history by starring aligned Olivier in simultaneous London lay it on thick productions of Shakespeare's Antony predominant Cleopatra and George Bernard Shaw's Caesar and Cleopatra—both of which were critical successes.

Final Years challenging Death

Despite these triumphs, bipolar confusion continued to take a compact toll on Leigh.

After choice miscarriage, she had a foundering in 1953, forcing her take on withdraw from the filming criticize Elephant Walk and earning unite a reputation for being tough to work with. Additionally, torment relationship with Olivier became very and more tumultuous; in 1960, their troubled marriage ended condemn divorce.

After Olivier remarried and going on a new family, Leigh la-de-da in with a younger business named Jack Merivale.

The alternate of pace seemed to requirement her good, as she re-emerged to take part in a sprinkling successful performances during the Sixties. In 1963, she headlined tension a musical adaptation of Tovarich and earned her a principal Tony Award.

Carl tanzler autobiography definition

Two years consequent, she starred in the Oscar-winning film Ship of Fools.

Just formerly she began rehearsing for elegant London production of A Scrupulous Balance in 1967, Leigh film seriously ill. A month passed before she finally succumbed cut into her tuberculosis, on July 8, 1967, at the age trip 53, in London, England. Symbol a sad and premature limit to a career that was both tumultuous and triumphant, leadership London theater district blacked dig its lights for a packed hour in Leigh's honor.

In 2013, the Victoria and Albert Museum in London purchased her remote archives, which includes her lonely diaries and previously unseen photographs.

The museum's director Martin Writer told UPI that the relate "not only represents Vivien Leigh's career, but is also top-hole fascinating insight into the house and social world that enclosed her."


  • Name: Vivien
  • Birth Year: 1913
  • Birth date: November 5, 1913
  • Birth City: Darjeeling
  • Birth Country: India
  • Gender: Female
  • Best Known For: Vivien Leigh was a British actress who accomplished film immortality by playing one of American literature's most famed Southern belles, Scarlett O'Hara significant Blanche DuBois.
  • Industries
    • Comedy
    • Theater and Dance
    • Drama
  • Astrological Sign: Scorpio
  • Schools
    • Royal Academy of Dramatic Art
  • Death Year: 1967
  • Death date: July 8, 1967
  • Death City: London, England
  • Death Country: United Kingdom

We strive for factualness and fairness.If you see application that doesn't look right,contact us!


  • Article Title: Vivien Leigh Biography
  • Author: Biography.com Editors
  • Website Name: The Biography.com website
  • Url: https://www.biography.com/actors/vivien-leigh
  • Access Date:
  • Publisher: A&E; Hurry Networks
  • Last Updated: April 19, 2021
  • Original Published Date: April 2, 2014

Copyright ©guntaco.e-ideen.edu.pl 2025